The Ones We're Meant to Find(32)

He’s not wrong. “It’s not about us.” I eat only what I need and stockpile the rest. I bake unappetizing biscuits because they will keep. Mashed taros? That’s a luxury I can’t afford. “I need to ration for the journey,” I say, and catch the look on the boy’s face, a flash so quick I would’ve missed it yesterday but already, I can read between his lines. The thinning of his lips? That’s his skepticism.

What if there’s nothing out there?

The softness in his eyes? That’s pity I mistook for concern.

She could be dead.

He thinks I’m delusional, and that angers me. Scares me—what if he’s right?—and when we’re trapped in a tiny kitchen together and he’s a meter away, I’m breathing in his doubt and I need to push it out and so the words leave my mouth before I can think any better of them. “Unlike you, I have someone waiting for me.”

And then I can’t see his face, or what my words do to it, because all I can see is Kay’s, blurred through my tear-chafed eyes. Hers are dry. She’s whole; I’m broken, I shouldn’t be—Mom was barely in our lives—and I wonder what’s wrong with me but that’s not what I say.

What’s wrong with you? I ask Kay, and the memory shatters. The boy is gone and I’m alone now, back in M.M.’s kitchen. My hands grip the table. Droplets dot the wooden surface. I wipe them off. Wipe my face. Sniff. In the memory, we were young, but was the last thing I said to Kay just as regrettable? Did I get to tell her I love her, and if not, will I ever be able to?

I will. I have to. I lift the bowl of mashed taro, appetite gone, but food is food and can’t be wasted so I taste it. It’s good. Sea-salted. A feast for my guilt.

I stomach what I can and leave behind more than half for the boy. For when he returns.

If he returns.

I keep watch by the kitchen window until night falls, then curl up on the couch, feeling dejected and pathetic for it.

“I hurt him,” I lament as U-me rolls over, stationing herself before my knees.

“Agree.”

“He’s never coming back.” Melodramatic, I know, but I can’t help it.

“Disagree.”

“You sound confident,” I mutter, laying my head down on the couch arm beneath the windowsill, my eyes fixating on the ceiling above. I guess we are on an abandoned island with limited real estate. He’ll have to return eventually. No guarantee we’ll be on speaking terms, though. I’ll miss his voice, I think, and groan, covering my eyes with an arm. I wish I could share my emotions with U-me and have her tell me I’m being irrational. Kay would. I’ve known the boy for, what? Two days? Three years without a human fix and two days later I’m addicted. Past-me would laugh at current-me, unable to sleep and heart leaping when finally, sometime around midnight, a sound comes from the porch. Whine of the front door, then creak of the half door separating the kitchen from the living room. Footsteps, soft.

And him. His outline fuzzes through my lashes as I pretend to be asleep, stirring only when I hear him stop by the couch.

“Cee?” His voice is a murmur of moonlight. I am the sea, pulled toward it. I don’t fight my reaction or act on it. Just let it swell, welcoming the physical yearning after so lengthy a drought.

“Mm-hmm?”

“I didn’t want to wake you,” says the boy, still whispering. I open my eyes fully. He stands at the other end of the couch, in a slant of moonlight coming from the window behind my head. His face is pale. Tired, but not upset.

I’m tired too, and too relieved for pretenses. “I wasn’t actually asleep,” I admit, sitting up. “I was waiting for you.”

A beat of silence, slightly awkward. Too honest? Maybe. Well, better say what I’ve been waiting all night to say. “I’m—”

“Sorry.” The boy steals the apology from my mouth. “For making you wait. And for earlier. I may not understand your way of life, but I can respect it. As for the taros…” He begins to explain how the tubers multiply as they grow.

I cut him off. “I trust you.”

The words feel right, even if they surprise me. They seem to surprise the boy more. His lips stay parted for a second. Then they close. He looks away. “You know nothing about me.”

His silence says the rest. I know nothing about me.

If only I could take back my words from before or give him some of my memories. But all I can offer is, “I know you’re good at cooking and cleaning and gardening, and probably a whole lot else. And I’m sorry too.” My throat grows thorny and I look to the window, the glass reflecting my face. “I say things I don’t mean sometimes, when I’m scared.”

“Do I scare you?”

“No.” His questions only watered the uncertainties already seeded within me.

“Even though I tried to kill you?” asks the boy. “Supposedly,” he adds, grudgingly as ever.

That makes me smile. “What can I say?” I turn away from the window. “I enjoy living on the edge.” I lay myself back down, stretched out like how I was before except I feel more vulnerable now, less like part of the couch and more like a flesh-and-blood body as our gazes meet.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I murmur. Not that I’d wish this island life upon my worst enemy, but I think he knows what I mean.